Exit Polls Suggest Syriza Has Won Greek Election

[C0ckney]

from the bbc

Exit polls suggest a historic victory for the anti-austerity Syriza party in Greece's closely fought general election.

One poll suggested Syriza took 35.5% of the votes, and the other suggested it took 39.5%, well ahead of the ruling New Democracy party on 23%-27%.

It is unclear whether Syriza has enough votes to govern the country alone.

Syriza's Alexis Tsipras has pledged to renegotiate Greece's debt arrangement with international creditors.

Far-right Golden Dawn and centrist The River came joint third in both exit polls.

The proportion of votes won by smaller parties will have a large impact on whether Syriza can gain the required 151 parliamentary seats to have an absolute majority.

great news; just a shame it didn't happen in 2009. it will be interesting to see how european markets react tomorrow.

[pchang]

Now, they can default and make Paiktis happy

[Pedotard]

Now they can attempt to spend money that no one wants to lend to Greece

[Hauldren Collider]

Now they can put off making any changes the greek economy actually needs to stop sucking (namely union busting).

[Hauldren Collider]

The real news story is that the neo-nazi party Golden Dawn came in third, by the way.

Legitimately scared about that.

[C0ckney]

no. the real news is that a far-left, anti-austerity party has taken power in greece. the far-left (syriza + communists) will have a clear majority, and the left in total (syriza + communists + pasok), will have around 180 seats in the new parliament. although both parties have said they won't go into coalition, it's hard to imagine syriza having any real (internal that is - the EU wide context is a different story) difficulties in getting their programme through.

golden dawn's share of the vote has actually gone down slightly (from nearly 7% to just over 6%), and they are irrelevant in any case.

[Hauldren Collider]

6% of voters going for a nazi party is not irrelevant.

[C0ckney]

and 94% didn't. you're welcome to your opinion of course but few people will be talking about golden dawn in the wake of this election.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

http://www.channel4.com/news/we-are-going-to-destroy-the-greek-oligarchy-system

[Jon Miller]

Now they can put off making any changes the greek economy actually needs to stop sucking (namely union busting).

The main problem in Greece is tax avoidance.

JM

[Hauldren Collider]

No, that is not the problem. That may be *a* problem but the root problem really lies in the fact that labor laws make it difficult to manage the public sector and make it difficult to run businesses profitably in Greece. As long as that's true the government can't cut spending where it needs to and businesses can't hire Greek workers.

25% of Greece is unemployed apparently. That's not because of tax evasion.

[DinoDoc]

So when will meetings start to expel Greece from the EU?

[C0ckney]

So when will meetings start to expel Greece from the EU?

no current legal mechanism to do that and it would be very tricky politically.

[DaShi]

Plus, everyone else will get jealous.

[C0ckney]

No, that is not the problem. That may be *a* problem but the root problem really lies in the fact that labor laws make it difficult to manage the public sector and make it difficult to run businesses profitably in Greece. As long as that's true the government can't cut spending where it needs to and businesses can't hire Greek workers.

25% of Greece is unemployed apparently. That's not because of tax evasion.

yes there was a debt crisis, the euro 'straitjacket', a banking collapse only staved off a by 'rescue' (worse adjective use ever) package, which bound the government to slash spending and social protections, leading to an economic meltdown. but thank goodness we have people like you to diagnose the real problem, namely: that workers just have too many damn rights.